Pohutukawa flowers at Christmas

I have always thought it is so difficult to capture the beauty of real flowers in a painting.

When I looked closely at a pohutukawa bloom at Christmas time, it was so vivid, I felt I had to try to capture it in paint.

I approached it thinking of the pohutukawa spray as a metaphor of fire works.

Something passed between them

There is a famous dog which is said to understand 300 words of human language but sadly most people don't understand animal languages as well as they do.

I thought this was the moment that the man was understanding what the dog wanted to say and they were really communicating with each other.

Luckily I could catch this instant.

I wanted to focus on their connection through their exchange of glances. I wanted to express the man's response to the dog's trusting eyes and love.

53cm x 35.5cm

Summer breeze

It was mid-summer on the waterfront.

She said she loved the summer sky so I imagined the whole painting as reflecting the sky colour using several different blue bases.

My main aim was to capture the gentle breeze she was facing into as a metaphor for her imagining that some happy event would happen to her soon after some upsetting life transitions.

The focus of the picture was the shadow cast on her face. It was also interesting to create the colours on her face and chest to make her expression come alive.

45cm x 35cm

Expecting

This painting was very challenging.

By restricting the use of color, I was trying to create many different tones.

I was also trying to create a sense of perspective despite the lack of a background.

The intention was to depict a young mother who had a sense of pride and satisfaction in her radiant body.

I was also trying to impart her expectations for her future.

55 cm x 36 cm

Autumn shadows

This was adapted from a photo which reminds me of my childhood.
The story is about a mother and child walking through the late afternoon sun in autumn. It is getting
dark so the mother is walking fast to go home pulling the child by her hand. The child however is fascinated by the the long shadows they cast.
As the sun goes down, their shadows get longer.

I wanted to tell this story by depicting their body movements, not their facial expressions.

42 x 33

Orchard Cafe

...

This is a unique cafe, the Orchard, along the river from Cambridge in England.

There is no sound of clattering dishes and or coffee-making machines nor any music. Only the sounds of the leaves rustling in the breeze and birds chirping.

When I heard some famous poets and writers such as Rupert Brooke or E.M. Forster or Virginia Woolf used to take tea or coffee here, I understood why they were fond of it. It was a pleasant place to create or concentrate on their own work surrounded by nature. Especially in the shade of early summer.

I wanted to paint such atmosphere: the smell in the fields in early summer where people went to after enduring a long winter.

35 x 46 cm

...

End of the day

A commonly seen scene at a local beach café in summer.

People sitting enjoying a coffee before going home.

I saw a man in the sun contrasting with a man in the shade.

And while the man in the sun was talking animatedly, I could not be sure that the man in the shade, like a lot of men(?) was actually listening.

28.5 cm x 42 cm

Siesta-time in a Spanish street

...

An ordinary street in a quiet Spanish town.

It’s siesta time, almost nothing moves except an occasional figure and the flags flapping against the sky.

When the siesta time is over, voices call, people appear. Noise and movement bring the street to life again.

But in the middle of the siesta there is just the heat and a gentle dry breeze.

...

Forest Cyclist

I did a version of this painting three years ago.

I was fascinated by the magical mosaic-like water reflections after the heavy rain.

But every time when I looked at it, I wanted to try it again.

I couldn't find a focus of interest in the forest scene.

Then after I added the tiny cyclist figure on the far side of the pond,

the magical mosaic-like water reflections after the heavy rain came alive.

Sometimes, landscapes need a human figure in them.

Saxophone in the Sunset

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An old black and white photo was the starting point for this picture; a musician had cycled to a park and was playing the saxophone contemplatively.

I bent a composition rule by putting the focal point at the center which artists usually say not to do because it divides the space in half and the eyes stop at the center.

I thought carefully how to paint the focus of the eyes and perspective devices such as clouds, birds, sun and mountains. To make the black and white photo come alive, I suggested that he was playing at sunset which, together with dawn, is the most colorful time of day.

There is a suggestion that the musician forgot to check the time and is absorbed completely in playing music.

42cm x 32 cm

…

Passive Human, Active Statue

...

On a street in a colorful small town were a bronze statue and a young boy.

It seemed to me that the bronze lady was walking towards me. Her confident stride and happy wave suggested she was optimistic about her future.

Behind her sat a real boy, motionless, almost as if he was paralyzed by his inaction.

This contrast between them, back to back, seems to signify that a living person may exude a quiet passivity while a bronze statue can leap to life.

32 x 42 cm

...

Dancing Duo

A few years ago, I drove past a man throwing a bundle of garden rubbish into a bin.

I stopped the car and asked him for some of the branches for my flower arrangement.One of them particularly interested me. It made me imagine a dancer performing some wild choregraphy. I tried to paint it straight away but it didn't turn out as I wanted.

Since then I kept thinking how I can treat this subject. A week ago I tried again. This time I painted it as a human dancer and as I did this, all of a sudden, this dead branch came alive and began to dance!

Cheese and Herbs Cellar

This is a painting of a cheese and herbs shop found on one of my favorite Greek islands.

A few steps down behind the counter, a cheese cellar was bathed in light.

However, the photo I took was so dark that I could not see objects clearly which were hung on the wall and the floor except cheese table .

At first I thought how messy it was but I realized everything was carefully set to create a Greek atmosphere.

Usually when I paint from a photograph, I choose a photo which gives me some feeling. Then I edit it by removing or adding objects.

This time I took some time over the process and choosing colours to create my image
from the photo.

27 cm x 36 cm

Mrs X

When she came to sit as a model the first time, I just drew her as an object.

But at the coffee break, I could get to know her personality more by her gentle manner and throug her way of talking to people.

I chose the colours to match her, a gentle touch of the brush work and soft touch of pencil drawing to express her character as closely as possible.



36 cm x 26 cm

A Golden Clearing

This is also an autumn view. Some trees bathe the woods around them in a golden yellow light.

Even the sky and ground are suffused with this golden color.

When I walk through this forest clearing, I have an illusion like going into a land of fantasy.

Autumn's beauty is powerful enough to make the people (who don't take photos often) to go out on a nature walk to take photos.

35 cm x 25 cm

Flaming tree

In autumn, the mountains, parks wherever maple trees grow, they turn just like a fire flaming in the light.

It often looks like they are using up all their energy to look their best before finishing life.

However, we all know they will come back again with a new look of a fresh green colour in spring.

I tried to express the tree's power and energy by the various bright colors which I don't use usually.

25 cm x 36 cm

Where is going?

...
This is a sad time which everyone goes through sometime or has in the past. And it is a part of everyday life.

I painted three groups in this picture. On the left, is the undertaker and the minister who is conducting the service.

On the right, the family and friends who are experiencing grief at the passing of the old man.

My focus is the children in the center. They are looking down into the grave full of

curiosity to understand where he is going.

Instead of creating a sad mood, I treated this more as a scene with different people executing different roles. Therefore it doesn't evoke an especially sad atmosphere, almost fun, because of the children.

27 cm x 36 cm

Elelphant at Play

While I was painting this , I was wondering whether this elephant was splashing the water just to cool himself down or simply having fun to tease his rider?

When I saw the elephant painting his own self-portrait using his trunk to hold a brush (he drew an elephant figure!) on YouTube, I wanted to know more about elephants.

According to WikiPedia, they are a very intelligent mammal. Their brain can process feelings such as grief and compassion. They can make music, they can use tools, they have self awareness and they can PLAY. In this situation he was surely playing. I had the impression from his eyes that he was smiling.

In this composition I was especially interested in the elephant using the powerful water pressure to spray whirls of mist around the girl and above her head .

33 cm x 41 cm

Nassos, a silversmith

The old city in Naxos (a Greek island) has a long history of constant invasion by Turks and pirates. The city itself was planned like a fort and streets were a maze. Some streets come to an abrupt end or become so narrow with lowered headroom so that adults can't pass through easily.

There we found Nassos, a silversmith in his workshop. In the shop there were some tourists but he did not stop working and kept making jewelry. He was totally absorbed in his own world. I was moved by his expression which expressed passion and pride in his work.

I took his photo while he was adjusting this ring which I bought. Later I found out his jewelry is well known in Europe and New York, although he works out of this tiny shop on this small island hideaway.

35 x 40 cm

La Traviatta

While I was listening to their performance in the St.Paul cathedral in Roma 3 years ago, I was already thinking how I can express my emotion and feeling of this wonderful music into my painting.

Their voice was filled up in the big space of the12th century church which was entirely decorated in mosaic with gold and colours. Also the acoustics left me with a powerful memory and I kept hearing their music in my head for a few days after.

Coincidentally, when I started to paint this, I was also practicing singing. Because of that, my hand moved freely and quickly. And most of all I truly enjoyed working on this.

(42cm x 31cm)